In this study, the researchers pretended that they needed
recommendation to the ethics committee for an experiment that would
cause severe emotional distress. The subjects were students at VU
university in Amsterdam. They had the choice to obey (write a
recommendation) disobey (not write the recommendation) or blow the
whistle (fill in a form to the ethics committee saying they were
concerned). 77% obeyed, 14% disobeyed, 9% blew the whistle. Of the 9%
who blew the whistle, 6% also obeyed (wrote a recommendation).
The researchers asked another group of students at the same university
what they thought they would do in the same situation. 4% of students
thought they would obey, 32% thought they would disobey, and 65% thought
they would blow the whistle.
http://www.vu.nl/nl/Images/Artikel%20Paul%20van%20Lange_tcm9-259358.pdf
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